


move it to the exits

by pensiveVisionary (hamburr)



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Canon Era, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Transphobia, Trans Character, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-10
Updated: 2017-01-10
Packaged: 2018-09-16 12:42:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9272297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hamburr/pseuds/pensiveVisionary
Summary: They know each other when they see each other for the first time -- something clicks. Burr doesn’t know what, or why, but he sees a reflection of himself in Hamilton.But surely Hamilton couldn’t possibly be keeping the same secrets.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bluecarrot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluecarrot/gifts).



> written for a very very wonderful friend who wanted something inspired by the drunk history episode and how could i ever possibly say no to that
> 
> wherein i bullshit the heck out of the timeline because who does adequate research, jeez

They know each other when they see each other for the first time. Something clicks. Burr doesn’t know what, but he sees a reflection of himself in Hamilton, with his young-looking, clean-shaven face and voice pitched in the same octave as Burr’s -- surely he can’t be nineteen? -- but Burr is eighteen, and just as boyish. But Burr knows why he appears so young, and surely Hamilton couldn’t possibly be keeping the same secrets.

Burr puts the thought out of his mind and buys Hamilton a drink and they talk late into the night, until Hamilton becomes a little too friendly, a little too handsy, and Burr has to make an excuse to leave before he is found out, feeling a little too warm to write off his feelings about the encounter as plain discomfort.

 

Every time he sees Hamilton, Hamilton is yelling at someone, or getting up to some other kind of trouble, and there are all kinds of rumors flying around about him. Burr tries to stay away, for fear of being gossiped about, but he can’t seem to avoid the man. He starts to think that Hamilton might, actually, be seeking him out, but what reason Hamilton could have for that Burr can't imagine.

They wind up at the same bar again, one night, and this time Hamilton is buying the drinks, and Burr has maybe had one too many because Hamilton is leaning in close and talking to him and Burr is letting him, letting him sit so close that they are sharing body heat and Hamilton’s broad gestures as he explains -- something -- keep involving elbows in Burr’s ribs and hands coming perilously close to smacking Burr in the face.

They stand up to leave together, and Burr stumbles a little. Hamilton puts his arm around Burr’s waist, and though he flinches, he doesn’t pull away, and maybe it’s a bad idea but he slings his arm around Hamilton’s shoulders in return, under the pretension of keeping his balance.

Hamilton offers to walk him home, and Burr accepts, and it’s late enough for the sun to start peeking above the horizon by the time they arrive. Burr suggests that Hamilton just stay in his guest room to try and get some sleep before he has to start the day, and Hamilton gratefully accepts the offer.

Burr wakes up in the evening with a pounding headache, and he wants to shove his face back into the pillow and sleep until tomorrow, but he figures since he’s awake he should probably find something to eat, since maybe that might help.

He finds Hamilton on the couch, engrossed in a novel. He doesn’t seem to notice Burr’s arrival, which suits him fine. Hamilton’s hair is down, falling around his face, and he looks quiet for the first time Burr has seen. Peaceful. Beautiful.

Burr is probably still drunk, or something, why else would he call Hamilton beautiful? Preposterous. He shakes the thought away and goes to make something to eat. It is only then that Hamilton seems to become aware of his existence, coming to join Burr in the kitchen and pester him while he organizes a meal for the both of them. He’s not sure why he hasn’t told Hamilton to leave yet, but -- it’s nice to not be alone.

Burr goes back to bed after dinner, tells Hamilton he can stay or go, just as long as he doesn’t trash the house. Hamilton just laughs and waves him off, telling him that he’s really just interested in Burr’s collection of novels, and as he doubts Burr will let him make off with them, he might as well just stay here and read.

Burr does not examine the reasons why he is not interested in counterarguing this point.

 

This ends up being the last time they see each other before the war; Burr ends up in Canada and Hamilton god-knows-where, until Montgomery gets shot and Burr is shipped off to Washington.

And there is Hamilton, Hamilton who takes the position of Washington’s aide-de-camp and is somehow bitter about it. Burr would give -- a lot of things -- to be valued, indispensable in the way that Hamilton is, instead of being shot at and putting his life and dignity in danger at every turn. He has experience, even, and more than Hamilton does; he was a captain and an aide-de-camp under Montgomery and is _justifiably_ bitter about Washington’s pointed ignorance of Burr’s skills.

He wonders if Washington knows, somehow.

(Then again, he wonders if everyone knows, somehow.)

He shares a tent with Hamilton and this concerns him greatly. Hamilton is nosey, and frustrating, and stays up until odd hours writing, and Burr has no privacy. Hamilton talks a lot -- this is no surprise -- but he also tries to get Burr to talk a lot, and it is excessively wearing. Even more when he noses into Burr’s personal life, asks him who his letters are from and if he’s seeing anyone and wait does he really have a sister and what was it like growing up where he did and a million other things.

Burr wishes he’d never gone off to fight. He’s always scared, now, that he’s going to get hurt, hurt but not killed and then the nurses who try to stitch him back together will decide that he’s not who they think he is because his body doesn’t look like they anticipate and he will have to live the rest of his life somewhere far away and in shame and terror of someone remembering him or finding out --

Burr has trouble sleeping, most nights, his mind too busy concocting the worst possible scenario out of every innocuous thought that crosses his mind.

But he survives, and survives unharmed enough to get by, until one awful, awful day in Maine where the sweltering heat and overexertion gets to him and one minute he is collapsing on the ground and what seems to be the very next he is waking up on a cot in a medical tent and oh no, oh _no_ \--

The nurse who sits beside him _shh_ s at him to calm his anxiety, lightly resting a hand on his shoulder. She assures him he is safe, tells him that his friend Hamilton was concerned and had been hovering and that he had only just left his bedside because she had asked him to fetch more water. No sooner does she say this than Hamilton reenters, and his face lights up when he sees that Burr is awake. He rushes over as quickly as he can without spilling the water. The nurse rolls her eyes.

Burr, somehow, can’t find it in himself to be annoyed, even when Hamilton devotedly stays at his side at every available moment. Sure, he affects annoyance, perhaps even convincingly, but Hamilton sticks around, and when Burr returns to their shared sleeping space, either Hamilton is less annoying, or Burr must somehow find him less annoying despite a lack of change in behavior. The latter is surely impossible, though, so Burr figures he should be grateful.

No one’s made any sign of knowing more about Burr than he wants them to, so he moves on.

 

The war continues, and as time stretches on and on and conditions -- in the camp and in the weather and anything else he could imagine -- continue to worsen. Burr finds himself falling ill with an annoying regularity.

He goes home before the war ends and goes back to school, picks up his law studies again, trying to return to full health. Hamilton writes to him; Burr doesn’t write back very often, and the letters arrive less and less.

He tells himself he doesn’t miss them.

 

He starts practicing law in New York City after the war ends, and he manages a few solid weeks without thinking about Hamilton before the man himself comes knocking on his door. He tells Burr he works next door, and then invites himself inside to spend the afternoon interrogating Burr about what he’s been up to and how he is doing and question after question after question until his head is spinning. God, he would hate to be questioned by Hamilton in court.

And so once again he finds Hamilton appearing in his everyday life. They start working together on cases, and even when they’re not working on the same thing, they come to find they work better together. They balance each other out, Hamilton’s hastiness and Burr’s reticence.

They stay late one night in Burr’s office. Burr is reading through his notes, and when he looks up to ask Hamilton a question, Hamilton is asleep with his head down on top of the book he was reading. His hair is falling across his face and he looks peaceful, still, quiet. It’s a strange look on him.

Burr kind of likes it.

He reaches out unthinkingly and touches Hamilton’s cheek, and Hamilton starts awake. Burr jerks his hand away, stutters out an apology and an excuse. He realizes he’s forgotten the question he was going to ask him anyway, so he proposes they might as well head out if Hamilton is so tired. Hamilton does not argue.

 

Burr can’t get that night out of his head for weeks, until something even worse happens.

 

Hamilton invites Burr out with his friends. It will be fun, he says. You could stand to get out more. Burr does not want to go out more, does not want to go out at all; he could count the men he trusts on one finger and even then he’s not sure he’d count Hamilton further than half. But he goes, anyway, and tries not to shrink away from loud drunk men and the boisterousness of Hamilton’s friends. He’d become unused to being around large groups of men, since he left the army, and it sets him on edge in an all too familiar way.

He hadn’t realized that Hamilton was quieter around him than around others -- perhaps not in quantity or volume of words, but in personality. He’s raucous and argumentative and rough, getting into playful scuffles with his friends, and it only increases the more he has to drink. Burr feels awkward, sidelined as he is, still nursing his first drink. Hamilton doesn’t seem to notice for a long time, but when he does, he shoves Mulligan off the stool beside Burr and claims the spot as his own.

He still doesn’t spend as much time talking to Burr as he does addressing the rest of the group, but he keeps glancing at Burr whenever he says something he hopes Burr will think is smart or funny, like he’s doing it to gain Burr’s approval.

They walk home together, afterwards, a very drunk Hamilton leaning against a mostly sober Burr. Burr feels like he’s been here before, but perhaps reversed. They pass Burr’s place first, and Hamilton asks to stay, neglecting propriety entirely.

And Burr, stupid Burr, who is coming to realize he might be a little more attached to Hamilton than is really wise, lets him.

The door closes behind them and Hamilton turns to Burr, takes a breath as if to speak, but then takes Burr’s face in his hands and pulls him in and kisses him.

Burr freezes, and Hamilton, impatient, keeps kissing him, sloppy and uncoordinated, trying to get Burr to kiss back.

Burr finally unfreezes and pushes Hamilton away, stares at him with wide eyes for a second before he turns and absconds to his bedroom, slamming the door.

 _What_ was that?

Burr gets in bed, but he can’t sleep. What had made Hamilton do that? What man would just -- kiss another of his male friends like that?

Anxiety grabs at his chest like a claw.

This is bad. This can be nothing but very, very bad.

 

Hamilton is gone in the morning, must have left when Burr ran away, so he doesn’t have to face him until work.

But Hamilton doesn’t show up at his office like he has unfailingly done every Monday in recent memory, and this does nothing to remedy Burr’s anxiety. He doesn’t know what Hamilton’s motivation was for kissing him -- has he guessed Burr’s secret and want to court him, thinking him a lady in disguise? Does he not know but is still somehow attracted to Burr? Does he think Burr is attracted to him? Did he have some strange ulterior motive?

He can’t stop thinking about it, and he makes it through a full week before he gives up on torturing himself and losing sleep over it. He marches over to Hamilton’s office the next Monday and knocks on the door until Hamilton lets him in.

Hamilton won’t meet his eyes, and refuses to say anything relevant until they’re both seated and the door is firmly shut, and then the first words out of his mouth are a stumbling apology. Burr waves it off, asks the more pressing question: why he did it at all.

What comes out of Hamilton’s mouth after that is the last thing Burr had ever expected.

Hamilton tells him that he has never felt like he’s been able to trust a man until Burr, that after all that he and Burr went through between the war and working together and everything else they’ve done, that he’s accidentally fallen for Burr. That he has spent his entire life trying and trying and trying to be good enough, to perform masculinity to adequate standards so people will know him correctly, know him as who he is and --

and when he says that Burr’s jaw drops and Hamilton stops talking mid-word and starts backtracking, trying to cover up what he’d said, until Burr interrupts with just two words: _me too_.

Hamilton stops talking, just as taken aback as Burr, and they’re both quiet until Burr breaks the silence with an awkward sort of laugh, and suggests that perhaps they really do have more in common than would appear at first.

Hamilton comes around the desk and leans down to hug Burr, who is still sitting, and it’s a terribly awkward position and a rather awkward action at all, really, but Burr hugs him back, and then stands up to hug him properly.

They stand there like that, holding each other, for a long time. Burr pretends not to notice Hamilton’s quiet sniffling and strokes his hair instead.

They step apart eventually, and then Hamilton asks permission to ask Burr another question. Burr approves the motion, and so Hamilton asks, with the sort of desperation of a man who has just put everything on the line, if Burr might even possibly, ever, be inclined to have feelings for him in return.

Burr sighs. He doesn’t know, really; he’s always been too busy trying to maintain appearances that he hasn’t had time for romance, and anyway there’s never been anyone he trusted enough to let into his personal space, physically or emotionally. He’s not even really sure if he has a preference for a potential partner’s gender one way or another. But -- he confesses -- he has always found himself gravitating towards Hamilton whenever they are together. He doesn’t know if this is just force of personality, or a subconscious acknowledgment of their common secrets, or if it really means attraction, but it’s something, he supposes.

Hamilton suggests, with a little smile, that there might be a way to find out, and then they are kissing. Burr is hesitant, at first, not really sure what he’s doing, but it doesn’t take him too long to figure it out -- though there are some interludes of awkward giggling and _what the hell are you doing, Burr_ \-- and he finds once he’s started he doesn’t want to stop.

They get very, very little accomplished that day except for twining themselves together in Hamilton’s desk chair and kissing until they can’t anymore.

Hamilton proposes, once it gets too dim to see very well, that perhaps Burr has found the answer to his question, and also that Burr might, possibly, like to come to Hamilton’s place for the evening? For dinner and whatnot, he clarifies quickly.

Burr accepts more on account of the whatnot than the dinner.

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on tumblr at @hambrr (i changed my url! i should... edit my old fic notes.....)
> 
> anyway depression is kicking my ass and comments and kudos absolutely mean the world to me and genuinely make my day


End file.
